


Things Unsaid

by moonflowers



Series: Daisy has all the luck [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Blow Jobs, Daisy gets all the fun, F/M, Fluff, Kisses, M/M, but I didn't want to clog their tag with my smutty Thommy, mild Alfred/Daisy, slight S4 spoilers where Alfred's concerned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowers/pseuds/moonflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Daisy stumbles across something she shouldn't. Again.<br/>Sequel to 'In the Boot Room.'</p><p>(EDIT: I've just realised, several months later, that pookiestheone has already written a fic with this title. And I'd read it before I even wrote this, and it still escaped my notice. What a twit. Apologies for stealing your title!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> Daisy has all the fun.  
> This is sort of a sequel to In the Boot Room, but I don't think you need to have read it for this to make sense.  
> There's some mild Daisy/Alfred going on, but I didn't tag it in case shippers for that pairing got distressed by the hefty Thommy I was leaving in the tag haaa.  
> If I didn't ship Thommy so hard, I would be all over Jimfred, just fyi. Mainly because the ship name brings me joy.  
> I'm in a rush, so I'll probs edit this later.

“Oh Lord, the wood basket for the stove’s completely empty,” Mrs Patmore shrieked and nearly dropped the kettle, “it were probably that idiot boy forgetting again; I’ve half a mind to speak to Mr Carson about him. Pop out and get some logs would you Daisy? I don’t want to risk getting set behind.”

“It should be alright though, shouldn’t it?” Daisy ventured cautiously as she started to gather things for the servants’ breakfast, “it usually –“

“I know the ins and outs of the stove well enough, thank you Daisy. But it would set my mind at rest if nothing else.”

“But I’m assistant cook,” she protested, “I shouldn’t be out fetching logs for the stove –“

“I am sorry Miss high-and-mighty, are such things above you now?” said Mrs Patmore, wiping her hands on her apron, “just go and ruddy get it so we can all get on with our day, hmm?”

“Yes, Mrs Patmore,” Daisy said, resigning herself to manual labour, setting down a loaf of bread and grabbing the wood basket. 

*

Thomas cast an eye over the breakfast table in the servants hall. Nearly all the staff were present, chatting, eating or looking half-asleep. He loudly announced that he was going for a smoke, though he needn’t have bothered as barely anyone even looked up, before finishing his tea and making his way to the courtyard out back.  
He grimaced at the cold, early morning drizzle falling on his face and pulled his jacket closer around himself, casting one more quick look about the yard before slinking in to the woodshed, taking care to turn the key behind him. It smelt of damp wood and saw dust, and it took a second or two for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. There was a brief moment of panic when all he could see was the dim interior of the shed and he feared he’d been jilted, but his worry was for nothing. A familiar figure unfolded themselves from where they’d been leaning against the grimy wall.

Thomas’ spirits rose instantly. “You’ll get your livery dirty, if you’re not careful.”

“Hello to you too,” Jimmy stepped out from the shadowy corner of the shed where he’d been waiting, “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Thomas didn’t think he really meant it, but still. It was strange how they both seemed to live half in fear of the other leaving or having a sudden change of heart, even though this… thing, between them was still relatively new and unexplored. It unnerved him, how quickly he’d become so dependent on Jimmy’s presence. “Impatient,” he said with a smirk as Jimmy wrapped his arms around his middle.

“Mm, well you wouldn’t have me any other way, would you,” it wasn’t a question, but even if it was Jimmy would have known the answer. Thomas knew he was painfully clear about where he stood on the subject.

“Course not you daft beggar,” he said, curling his fingers into the hair at the base of Jimmy’s neck and pulling him closer, “now come here and kiss me, before the others send out a search party.”

Jimmy grinned and did as he was told, arching himself up into Thomas’s body and sliding his hands down Thomas’ back to grasp at his bottom. After spending so much time working alongside Jimmy, Thomas had observed that there wasn’t an awful lot that the other man was genuinely enthusiastic about. But he could now blessedly count himself as one such thing.

“Is everyone still at breakfast?” Jimmy mumbled through his kisses.

“Mm,” said Thomas, surprised Jimmy had even spared a thought for the whereabouts of the others. He was impulsive and a little reckless when it came to getting what he wanted, and sometimes painfully self-absorbed. “I told them I was going for a smoke. But we don’t have long.”

“In that case,” Jimmy said quietly, kissing Thomas’ pulse on his neck; he’d learnt quickly how much Thomas liked it, the devil, “we’d better get a move on.” He moved his hand around to cup Thomas through the front of his trousers, but as much as Thomas appreciated the sentiment, he stilled Jimmy’s hand. There was something he’d wanted to do for a long while now, but he’d been worried about Jimmy’s reaction.

*  
Daisy had done as she was bidden and gathered as much wood for the stove as she could carry, which as it turned out was only half a basket. Mrs Patmore had deemed it not enough, and sent her back for another load. She rushed back outside to the shed, mentally running through the list of things she had to do when she got back to the kitchen; lunch wouldn’t be too much bother, but there was a big party over for dinner that night, and a lot of dishes needed their continued attention in advance. She supposed she was grateful for Ivy’s presence in the kitchen, on busy days like this, but they still weren’t exactly the best of friends. It was hard after all the grief they’d given each other, intentional or not. She’d thought they might have become better friends after that night last month when she’d confided to Ivy about what she’d seen in the boot room, but… Shaking her head before the memory could take hold, she marched over to the woodshed in the courtyard. She was about to yank open the door when she heard a shout from inside. She froze, hand on the latch. Should she go in? It was probably just a dog shut in by mistake or something just as unimportant, but then it might be someone hurt or in trouble, and needing her help. Though if Daisy had learnt anything from her years at Downton, it was that it was best to find out as much as you could about a situation before barging in. Biting her lip in indecision, she slowly edged around the side of the shed to peek in through the old window, pulling it open just a crack, so she could hear inside.

“Ahh, bloody hell,” Daisy’s eyes widened at the coarse language she heard through the open window. Perhaps someone really was hurt… Cautiously, she peered through the gap into the shed. 

Jimmy was leaning back against the workbench, hands scrabbling over the rusty tools littering the surface and his head tilted back, tendons in his neck pulled tight, an expression almost like pain on his face. As she watched, he groaned and bit his lip before calling out. “Jesus Christ!”

“Keep it down, would you?” said another familiar voice, and it wasn’t until then that Daisy noticed the figure kneeling on the dusty floor in front of Jimmy, their head between his thighs and level with the unfastened front of his trousers. Daisy nearly dropped the wood basket.  
Thomas.

“Sorry,” Jimmy said with a huff of laughter, “I just had no idea that would feel so bloody good, is all. You must have had a fair bit of practice.”

“Oi,” Thomas reached up to pinch Jimmy’s backside in reprimand, “what are you implying, Mr Kent?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, “just please – please keep going.”

“Only if you keep quiet. We don’t have long.” He leant forward towards Jimmy again, and Daisy stared at the back of his head in shock. What on earth could he be doing putting his head… there? Whatever it was, it made Jimmy gasp.

“Ohh, I don’t think I’ll last much longer anyway if you keep that up.”

He sucked in another breath at whatever it was Thomas was doing. Daisy gaped in shock, her face heating up at the lewd, wet noises that sounded a bit like kissing. Did that mean Thomas was kissing Jimmy on… Oh good Lord. It was too much.  
That warm, tight feeling that she’d felt when she’d seen them kiss before crept back into her stomach, making her legs quiver and her breath quicken. She watched Jimmy’s hand creep down to caress at the back of Thomas’ head, holding him close. Thomas was moving faster and faster, Jimmy’s eyes screwing up as he cried out.

“Ugh, Thomas I love you!”

It was this declaration that finally made Daisy come to her senses. Even after all the strange and unnerving goings on she’d witnessed between the two men, it was hearing Jimmy give voice to it that made her realise the seriousness of it all. And it frightened her. Hoisting the basket back under her arm, she turned tail and scurried back to the kitchen, firewood be hanged. Mrs Patmore probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

*

The forbidden meeting Daisy had stumbled across in the woodshed followed her like a raincloud for the next few days, ever present above her head and threatening to burst. She needed to talk to somebody about it, or she’d go mad. She decided against Ivy; she hadn’t much use last time either, them being both as shocked and confused as each other. The very thought of bringing it up with anyone else made her want to cry. But if she was clever about it, she might not have to say exactly what it was she wanted to know…

Ivy had gone up to bed, and it was just Daisy and Mrs Patmore tidying away the last few things ready for tomorrow. Daisy wrung the fabric of her dress with her hands and tried very hard to appear casual.  
After some half-hearted remarks about how Miss Baxter was getting on, and how highly Mr Moseley seemed to think of her, Daisy eventually broached the terrifying and intriguing matter itself.

“So, are Thomas and Jimmy good friends again now?” It wasn’t as subtle as she’d wanted it to be.

Mrs Patmore stilled for a moment before turning to look at her, curious expression on her face. “And what do you mean by that, exactly?”

“Well, it seemed like they were friends when Jimmy first started, and then they sort of ignored each other for a bit, and now they’re as good as glued to each other every spare moment they get...” she trailed off. That last bit was partly guesswork.

“… I see.”

“And I never saw Thomas like that with anyone before. I mean, I know him and Miss O’Brien used to be close, but he always seems to keep everyone else at arm’s length if he can help it.”

“Daisy,” said Mrs Patmore slowly, narrowing her eyes, “do you… do you know something, something about Thomas, that you’d like to talk to me about? Because you can, if you need to.”

“I –“ she tried to speak up, she really did, but Mrs Patmore was looking at her in such a funny way, and the words sort of got stuck in her throat, and it was Thomas they were talking about for goodness sake; she’d known him for years, she even used to fancy him a bit, and she just couldn’t bring herself to say any of it. “No,” she said eventually, and made a brave attempt at a smile, “but I’d best get to bed.”

“Yes, I think that’s best,” the cook nodded vigorously, “and make sure you get into the village in time to meet Alfred tomorrow. I don’t want to have listened to you rabbiting on about it all week just for you to forget all about it. Now, get on with you.”

“Yes Mrs Patmore. Goodnight, Mrs Patmore.”

*

The next afternoon, Daisy was making good on her promise to meet Alfred in the village for tea. Mrs Patmore was right in the way that she’d been looking forward to it all week, but wrong if she thought Daisy would ever have forgotten it, no matter how distracted she may have been by other goings on in the house. She really did like Alfred, even after all his mooning over Ivy, and they’d kept their promise to be good friends. They’d met up two or three times in the months since he’d left to begin his training as a chef, whenever they could both get their time off to coincide.  
He greeted her with a grin and a clumsy handshake that Daisy felt were a bit over-formal, but nice all the same. They had tea together in the little place in the village, and Alfred told her about all the wonderful things he was learning to cook, and how he’d always watched her cooking back at Downton, and envied her her work. She laughed and asked him if he’d still think that if it meant working under Mrs Patmore all day. He said probably not.

It wasn’t until Alfred was walking her back across the fields to Downton that Daisy remembered what had happened the day before. She was still ever so confused over the whole thing. Talking to Mrs Patmore about it hadn’t gone well at all, and though she still felt wildly uncomfortable asking Alfred about it, she didn’t think he would brush her off or tell her she wouldn’t understand. And he knew Jimmy better than she ever could; they’d shared a room once, after all.

“Alfred,” she began, words catching in her throat, “there’s summat I wanted to ask you about.”

“Of course,” he said, with a fond smile that made her feel a little bad she was probably about to ruin things, “what is it?”

“I –“ she gulped, her nerve faltering, “It’s just that you know Jimmy always used to be so grumpy all the time? And how when he smiled it never really looked like he meant it?”

Alfred snorted, “You’ve got that right enough. He only ever used to smile when he were trying to make a good impression with the Crawleys or chat up Ivy.”

Maybe she should stop before it was too late… “That’s just it you see. He’s not so interested in Ivy as he used to be.” Or perhaps not.

“What?” Alfred stopped abruptly and turned to look at her, “Daisy… are you trying to tell me you’re keen on Jimmy? Because I don’t think I could bear it if –“

“No, don’t be daft,” she cracked a small smile at just how mistaken he was, and forced herself to keep going. “Jimmy’s been spending a lot of time with Thomas lately,” she hesitated, not sure how to say what she had to without being obvious or just plain inappropriate, “and now he smiles properly.”

Alfred’s look of concerned deepened, the line of his mouth tightening. “Daisy,” he looked her right in the face, and she felt her cheeks warm, “Daisy, has something happened? Something – did someone do something that’s upset you?”

“I didn’t mean to look, honest!” she blurted in a panic. “It was an accident I swear it.”

“Daisy, calm down,” he put a hand on her shoulder, and his touch grounded her, just a little. “I think you should tell me what you saw,” he said, looking as though this was the last thing he thought she should do, “because you sure as heck can’t tell anybody else. It’ll be alright, I promise you.”

“Alright,” she tried to tamp down the panic starting to bubble in her stomach again, “the first time I saw them –“

“The first time?!”

“Just let me finish, I beg you, it’s eating me alive Alfred! It’s all so confusing –”

“Shh, alright, I’m sorry. You were saying?”

“They were in the boot room,” words were pouring freely from Daisy’s mouth, and once she’d started her sorry story, it was too late to stop, “It were late, and I thought everyone had gone up, but I heard them. And there was all this talk of ‘last time’ and ‘being certain,’ and Thomas looked so very sad, but then Jimmy just grabbed him and k-kissed him, harder than I’ve ever seen anyone kiss before. Then they started to – I’d rather not say, but I couldn’t watch anymore. I told Ivy –“

“Why would you – “

“It’s alright, she was shocked at first, like me, but then she sort of let it drop. So did I, really. But then yesterday I were getting some logs from the shed, and they were in there, and they were at it again, all over each other, and I know it were wrong of me to look, I ought to have been disgusted, but I couldn’t look away so help me, and looking at them made me feel all strange and warm, almost like I were ill, but it was sort of nice, and – “

“Daisy?”

“What?”

Alfred kissed her. Just once, on the mouth, so quick and soft she almost missed it. When he’d pulled away, he looked down at her, nervous. Daisy couldn’t help but smile through her surprise, all thoughts of other people’s kisses momentarily banished from her mind.

“What were that for?” 

“I’m sorry,” Alfred’s mouth twisted uncomfortably and he started wringing his hat between his hands, “it weren’t very proper of me Daisy, and you deserve better than the likes of me. I’m sorry,” he said again. 

“You needn’t be sorry,” she said, still unable to stop smiling “it were lovely.”

“Really?” Alfred asked, looking a bit more hopeful, “it’s just… I know I’ve said before that I wanted to just be friends, but I’ve been thinking that it were a mistake, and you looked so pretty just now, and so worried, and I wanted to make you feel better –“

“It’s alright,” Daisy cut him off with a hand on his arm, “it’s more than alright.” She slid her hand down to take his, reminded of a time she’d once kissed a boy just to see him smile, and very much hoping this would turn out differently. “Now, are you going to walk me back home, or not?”

*

“You said you love me,” Thomas said the moment Jimmy entered his bedroom. He hadn’t meant to be so direct, but then, like a lot of things when it came to Jimmy, things hadn’t quite gone as he’d expected.

Jimmy visibly winced, before quickly shuffling his features into something more defiant, tilting his chin up to look Thomas in the face. “Yes. I did. People say stuff like that in the heat of the moment, don’t they.”

“So they say,” Thomas said, pulling a cigarette from the pack and trying not to look as on edge as he felt, “but the thing is, people don’t always mean what they say in the heat of the moment, do they Jimmy.” He pulled his lighter from his pocket to light up. “Did you mean it?” he said lightly, as though he were asking about something as inconsequential as the weather. In truth, his insides felt like he’d swallowed a gallon of seawater; heavy, unpleasant, and slightly sick.

Jimmy was silent for a moment, arms folded and looking sullenly at the floor. The look he wore when he knew he was beaten. After a while, he cleared his throat and shrugged off his jacket. “I suppose I might have,” he said gruffly.

“Oh really?” Thomas allowed a smirk to lift the corners of his mouth. So that’s a yes then. He instantly felt lighter, lighter than he could remember feeling for a long time. “You ‘might’ have?”

“Mmhmm,” Jimmy grunted non-committedly and loosened his collar. “Do you – do you feel the same then?”

Thomas inwardly rolled his eyes. Jimmy knew very well how Thomas felt about him; had never stopped feeling about him. But it was Jimmy’s confession that mattered here, not his. Jimmy’s confession that would alter how things were between them this time. It wouldn’t just be a bit of fun after this; not that it ever had been, for Thomas at least. But that didn’t mean he was going to let Jimmy have it easy, the little bugger. “Don’t know,” he shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette, leaning back against the headboard, “I might do.”

Jimmy looked at him incredulously, eyes wide, before snorting with laughter and crossing the room to clamber into his lap. “You utter bastard,” he said, grinning and covering Thomas’ face with kisses.  
I  
“Yes,” Thomas agreed and worked his arm free from Jimmy’s hold so he could put out his cigarette before he burned himself by accident, “but you still love me.”

Jimmy tensed for a second, before letting out a deep breath and wrapping his arms even more tightly around him. “Yes. You’re right Mr Barrow – Thomas. I do love you.”


End file.
